A Near Dawn is a charmingly devastating psychological thriller with amusing highs, gut-wrenching crashes, and mature themes. When Seattle-based attorney, Sam Nichols - a victim to some disturbing psychological difficulties - takes on an important new case, he finds himself exposed to progressively dire circumstances that threaten to unravel his reality and destroy those closest to him. With his mentor's firm on the brink of collapse, Sam will have to take on a ruthless multinational corporation being protected by some of the vilest people imaginable. The odds already seem slim, but you will soon learn that things were never as they appeared - as an even deeper conspiracy begins to emerge. Where will you find yourself if you keep untangling the threads to this mystery? You must be brave to uncover the truth! Our Prologue introduces some of the key characters, the setting, and hints at the challenges ahead, but stopping short of telling you exactly what to expect. The case seems typical. It isn't. One of the concepts for this title was to start from present day, reality as we know it, and progress down a deep well of mysteries.

History

A Near Dawn is a character-driven psychological thriller point and click visual novel adventure with one part darkness and two parts humor. We have always loved traditional adventure games with their immersive, colorful and often emotional journeys, so it should be no surprise that our project is greatly inspired by the Broken Sword, Blackwell, and Ace Attorney series, as well as darker titles such as Steins;Gate and even Twin Peaks. We feel very passionately about the story and characters of A Near Dawn. This is a very ambitious project that has been in development on and off for three years at our small independent studio. There is so much that we want to do with it, but a lot of that may unfortunately come down to the support we can receive with our upcoming KickStarter campaign.

Features

Beautiful artwork and animations rendered in 1080pImmersive cinematics with frame-by-frame artOriginal soundtrack composed for the gameFully voiced audio provided by exceptionally talented actorsPoint and Click interface with puzzles to solve - the flow of this game is inspired by traditional adventure gamesDynamic decisions that alter the course of your interactions with others - be they rewards or consequences for your actionsPsychological tension - the main character has a darker personality who will come to the surface if you feed that darkness with the decisions you makeMultiple endings - there is one true ending, but your successes or failures can take you off course, leading you to a different resolutionEpisodic narrative - this is a full game, but it is part of an ambitious project with a far-reaching storylineRemarkable castDelightful humor

I thought I will introduce myself as well, since I'm fairly new in the Adventure Games community.My name is Leon (@LeonDaydreamer), I am an artist, writer and animator. I worked for a long time on TV cartoons like Ugly Americans and Jimmy Two-Shoes.

I've been dreaming of making an adventure game since I was a kid - pretty much since I first discovered Monkey Island 2, and then later Broken Sword 2 (my all-time favourite). Don't ask me why I kept stumbling on the sequels before the originals, but they are such a part of my childhood and the feelings I have associated with these games are of pure joy! Somehow, I'm all grown up and I have just released the Prologue (Demo) AND even launched a KickStarter for my game. Things have been exciting and a little overwhelming (this is both my first big independent project AND my first crowdfunding campaign).

I hope you guys have a chance to check out my Prologue and campaign, and if you do I would love to hear your thoughts! And if you'd like to ask me anything, I'm here.

"... I grew up on adventure games: Monkey Island, Indiana Jones – and later Broken Sword, Blackwell, Ace Attorney. I adore these stories and have an association of pure joy with them, mostly because they are a part of my childhood. These games inspire me, because their writing is clever and their storylines are imaginative. Everyone has a different set of works that set the bar for them, whether films, books, or games – and in my mind, these are the ones that I will always be working towards within my work. I don’t need to deconstruct them or reverse-engineer them to know what’s great about them, I know it all of that by heart, just as I am sure you do with your selection. These tell their story like any other, but they reinforce it with this charming, quirky humour that is the true genius behind them – their personality. I have a theory about eccentricity, it really sets work apart and in my opinion makes it more memorable..."

"... there is no question in my mind that you need something for a character to stay with your audience. Everyone knows that instinctively, if they think about their favorite characters – I mention Peter Lorre from The Maltese Falcon in my post, but I can just as easily talk about Jack Sparrow, an immensely beloved character. And probably eccentricity is not the perfect word, but definitely personality..."

It was my first interview ever, and the questions were VERY detailed. It was kind of challenging addressing all the points they raised!

The gist of it is that all our backers on Kickstarter at and above the Early Wakeup tier will receive a complimentary copy of the game on Android (for themselves or a friend) in addition to their other rewards!